Second July

17 June 2009

Stickers

She came into the room a few minutes late from the scheduled time. It was five past seven in the evening and I was logging off from my space invaders killing spree whilst greeting her with a 'hi', but she didn't say anything except for some mumbles. By the second week into my stint as a part time piano teacher, I was already used to getting no replies from my students.

Very well, let's begin the class then.

Like any other lessons, I started off with whatever was taught on the previous week. Usually the students would obediently whip out their John Thompson Easy Piano or that sort and start playing. Whether the piece played is really the last they learnt, I have no idea. Because I'm probably the 5th or so substitute teacher they had and they should know the drill.

And so I asked her if she could show me what she did on the previous lesson. She said no, followed by more mumbles. At the same time, her hand was already digging into her backpack and out came a John Thmopson.

Ok, maybe she's not the average student, but she sure looks pissed off to even talk to me properly.

I flipped to the page which I presumed was her last piece, as indicated by the dates written at the top (it was around 20th May with LH RH written beside it). We played together, with my right hand doing the same as hers, only 2 octaves higher on the keyboard - the way my very first piano teacher used to teach me.

And then I realised, she is different. Never mind that she had the habit of wiping off her running rose with the back of her hand while practising (I was ewww-ing to myself inside). Nor the fact that she seemed comfortable banging her fingers on the keys (which were the right notes most of the time so I let her off on that).

When I praised her for doing something correct, she would turn to the opposite side and giggled to herself. Very quietly with shoulders shrugged. Then when I requested her to play the piece with both hands, she shook her head and leaned back as if afraid that the notes would jump out from the score and bite her scrawny fingers. The expression on her face said it all.

OMG, what have I gotten myself into. Is she crazy or something? What's next?? I hope she won't suddenly jump up and strangle me with those scrawny hands.

While explaining the basics of tempo, we did a bit of writing. That was when I noticed stickers all over her pencil case. Stickers of boy bands like Farenheit, DBSK and Lollipop. Wah, you sure know who and where the hensem boys are.

Then I said these magic words -- "your pencil box very nice leh" *smiles*

At first she did her giggle and then she smiled back at me and said "you think so?"
"Yeah. Nice stickers what."
"Hehe, do you know who these boys are?" *points at the biggest sticker of them all*
"Of course I do. Dong Bang Shin Ki mah. They're so famous leh! (I knew only because the letters DBSK were printed on the stickers. phew.) This one also I know, Fahenheit! And this one is Wu Zhun mah right??"
"Wah, you really know them! You got watch their drama??"
"Of course! I watched the one..forgot what's the name..er..."

I really did watch one with Wu Zhun in it and really couldn't the name. And then she went on to name all those drama with the boys inside. We even touched on Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears (she went on to list out all of Britney's tracks since the beginning).

For the first 15 minutes of the lesson, she never uttered more than 5 words and here she was, speaking very enthusiastically. Later on, I asked her some questions which I didn't manage to get any reply from her at first ("How long you've been learning piano?" "x years!").

Right before we ended our first lesson, I found out that she is 18 and carries a backpack with the words "F4" plus yet another sticker.

My most enjoyable lesson so far.

Labels: The Educatee, The Musician

posted by: JYLing @ 9:35 PM

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